When getting into action, it is necessary to practice. Just like when baking a cake, we give it time to bake, so screen printing needs proper drying when coated. It is an essential step in the screen printing process. It involves more than ensuring the emulsion is dry to the touch.
It needs deep attention when drying as it may flake or crisp. These processes are necessary to maintain your design’s integrity, allowing for sharp and clear edges. Understanding these processes for screen printing services to achieve reliable and high-quality prints.
Drying screens also include various benefits, such as eliminating the risk of contamination from dust and other particles, which can create a mess in your screen prints.
Let’s go through how to cover these procedures and conditions and implement them in your best screen printing services.
Methods for Drying Your Coated Screen Printing
This is the most crucial part of professional screen printing services: to let it dry your coated screen properly before it is imaged for use on screen, you must have proper ideal drying tools and conditions to follow to achieve that incredible presentable look.
However, many people make tiny mistakes that grow into major mistakes when the screen is dry.
As in one of the leading companies, Ink & Cotton, we follow completely correct tips to dry the coated screen efficiently to present a stunning outcome.
When drying a coated screen, it is important to learn a few factors to achieve that chic look:
- Protecting the coated screen from containment of dust and other particles
- Ensure there is proper light
- What temperature to maintain for coated screen
- Screen drying at a dry place
- Screen drying on a drying shelf
- Optimal airflow during drying
Protecting the Coated Screen from Containment of Dust and Control the Humidity
Dust control and Humidity are crucial when drying a coated screen; following the correct procedure to enhance your screen print design is essential. When drying the coated screen, make sure there are no dust or lint particles on the wet screen, as they may appear in the final look of the screen as dark spots. However, using a hygrometer, you can utilize and control the humidity level from this meter. By keeping track of your meter, you can make informed decision knowing the humidity level. Maintaining the ideal humidity level by 30% to 40%, lowering the humidity level can also cause the coated screen to dry faster, and lower can cause breakage of ink. Following these tips can enhance the overall coated process of your online screen printing services.
Ensure you have Proper Lighting for Screen Printing Services.
When beginning the process for the coating to dry, the drying chamber or cabinet must be completely black to block any light or UV- wavelengths that reach the coated screen, which might affect the coated area and induce the emulsion to start breaking and pre-expose the design. If this occurs, you will be left with an unusable screen. If the coated screen is exposed to the sun for an extended period, even a filtered fluorescent bulb will lead to premature crosslinking. It takes serious hours before the yellow light creates any serious pre-exposure. However, leaving the coated screen in a drying location for a day or two is unusual and might cause serious issues.
In addition, Not only do these lights turn off UV lights, but they also lose their yellow filtering substances. The issue is indicated when the whitening of the blub towards the end suggests that the bulb needs to be replaced. Numerous testing elements show the bulbs’ quality, indicating whether they transmit too much light.
Optimal Airflow During Drying and a Safe Place for the Screen
We have been interviewing people, and they usually face trouble with screen drying time, which generally takes a lot of time. We tried to spot the problem. When asked to repeat the process, what he did was shocking, and we spotted the issue in a minute: he stacked a coated screen, squeegee side up, in a drying box. That box was light and clear, free of dust. The only problem it had was that it was quite airtight. Very dry air could pass, and very little wet air could escape, which drags the process for days. To minimize this process, you can use numerous other boxes, from basic homemade units to heated, thermostatically controlled factory units. But it is necessary to ensure that the gadget has a proper space for airflow to pass, escape, or moist if you use any of these. Properly crafted cabinets, especially for screen printing services, make the overall process fast and help dry fast while saving space from the containment of dust and damage.
In addition, the containment issue is commonly faced by shops that dry screen in an open environment, such as for industries that use large format screens. As you know, large format printers are usually used in climate control rooms where they dry large screens.
This process is usually completed by transmitting air through multiple fans from one space to another. But the problem with these fans is they dry the screen and bring dust with the air, ruining the wet print on the screen. However, if a proper dust-free room is used to eliminate the dust and other particles, the professional screen printing process will be smooth and effortless for now and in the future.
Conclusion:
Drying your coated screen is more than just a common part. The whole process of screen print depends on it. A critical part that can make or break the quality of your final print is paying attention to deep details, such as drying conditions and positioning. To ensure that your screen is ready for exposure, practice these steps to make the process cleaner, sharper and incredible. Learning these practices will enhance your overall performance in screen printing functioning.
